May 19th, 1988: West Defeats East in the OMFL Grads Game

I hit a wall at 1988 while gathering results for the Athletes In Action high school senior game some months ago. Being that I've been collecting scores from right around that time period for a bunch of other teams, I thought I would give it another try.

I don't know how I missed the 1988 and 1989 game articles the first time. The Citizen had full-page ads for them!

In truth, I think it's because the emphasis on Athletes In Action is not present by then. Whatever the cause, the recaps for those two contests are now included on the "AIA Game" page above. The Citizen was a very supportive partner of this endeavour for a few years. 

In tracking those down, I found something completely unexpected; a Midget All-Star game in 1988 featuring players from the four Ottawa teams competing at that level at the time.

The following year, the teams went with Red / White identification rather than a regional one.

Coverage of the Midget level gets very spotty as we enter the 1990s but I'll make a point to continue looking for summaries of these all-star games played in the spring.

1981: Ottawa Trojans 22, Dukes of Gloucester 00 (Midget)

It was the Midget page's turn to get some attention this morning.

Records on this page of the early years of the Midget level in Ottawa tended to be little more than championship scores and partial recaps of those games. I've now been able to find most scores for the 1980 and 1981 seasons. 

As stated at the top of that page, the Midget level came into being with the birth of the Ottawa Trojans in 1980. They were joined by Dukes of Gloucester the following year. Their meeting in early September of that year, then, was the first between Midget teams in Ottawa. 

I already had a recap of the Trojans' championship victory later that year but it was of poor quality. I have found a cleaner version of it and replaced the original with it. 

Finally, I've come across a brief article listing the year's award winners. Unfortunately it, too, is a little rough looking. Sorry 'bout that. 

The Nepean Norsemen would join the league in 1982. I'll seek to locate some background on that team as well shortly. 

1986 Midget Championship Game

I had some success this afternoon filling out some of the details from the early years of the midget level in the Ottawa area, the mid-to-late 80s in particular.

In doing so, I came across the image below from the 1986 championship . While the level of play was covered much more extensively at the time than it is nowadays, it seldom included photography (or at least the Ottawa Citizen didn't include much) so I thought it was worth holding on to and sharing. 

The Trojans went on to win the game 20-07. It was their third straight championship.

1984: "Trojans Ontario (Midget) Football Champs"

The partial article below was added to the Midget page earlier tonight. It was written by Bob Ferguson and featured in the local sports section of the Monday, November 12th, Ottawa Citizen. The game took place the Sunday before.

Mr. Ferguson points out that nine former Trojans had taken part in the Ottawa Sooners national championship victory in Kelowna on the Saturday. That's a good way to underscore the benefits of these programs.

1980: Midget Level Football Comes to Ottawa

The article below, in regards to the launch of the Ottawa Trojans midget team, is from the July 25th  edition of the Ottawa Journal. It is not the first article about this club, but it is the most detailed.

I don't recall where I got this information now, but the Trojans won that opening game against the defending champs by a score of 14-06, and generated a 7-2 record overall but got upended in the semi-finals. Not a bad way to make a first impression.